Why I Like the iPhone

By now you've read lots of reviews about the Apple iPhone. Yes, I'm a Fanboy and I'll tell you that up front, but here's why I like it:

1. Design matters. Someone once described an elephant as a horse designed by a committee. The committee comes up with all the features that they want a horse to have, assembles them in some fashion, and BAM! the horse looks like an elephant when the committee is done. While that's sort of how I compare Windows Mobile to the iPhone. Sure, WM has more features and it is very functional, but really it's more "ctional" because, what's missing? The "fun" that's what! The "child-like sense of wonder" that Fake Steve Jobs is always talking about. iPhone has put the "fun" back into functional.

2. Do I really need a swiss army knife? It's easy to look at a new device and say it does or doesn't have certain features. Is that really relevant to what we use on a daily basis? Maybe it is a deal-killer if a key feature is missing. For some, the lack of native Microsoft Exchange support will be a deal killer for use in the Enterprise. That's not my issue, so as far as I'm concerned, it's not a problem. I suspect it's also not an issue for millions of other people either. Still, a pretty big market even if I leave out all the Enterprise people. But, the Enterprise also used to shun Palms and Ipaqs and other PDA's. You will notice more than a few of those devices around the Enterprise today. Heck, big companies only recently moved to XP in many cases. Do I want to model my buying habits after people that don't like change? I think not.

3. People like the iPhone! People ask to play with my iPhone all the time and do I ever have to tell anybody what to do? No, it's intuitive! Customer satisfaction surveys back up that iPhone is liked by people who have them and people who don't.

4. Exciting things are happening with the iPhone. Developers are hacking the darn thing right and left. Every day, new websites are popping up to add iPhone-specific features. This is an exciting device to have from this standpoint and it get's more exciting all the time. Even people who don't like the iPhone can't bear to be left out of the conversation about it. You may or may not like it, but you aren't ignoring it. If everybody is talking about a device, I usually end up wanting to try it to see what all the conversation is about.

5. It's the screen!!!!! It's beautiful! I have so much fun surfing the net when I'm waiting in line or at the mall with the family or whenever. It's sooo much better then WM devices I have owned.

6. Cover Flow. I went out and added artwork to all my music just because it is so fun to play with cover flow.

7. Activesync blows! Any device that doesn't need Activesync to talk to my computer is a device worth looking at. The iTunes interface is sooooo easy!

8. The touchscreen rocks! I can see the darn thing outside - try that with a Blackjack or Cingular 8125. I can dial the phone with the onscreen buttons. I used to hate using the Cingular 8125 as a phone because it usually took me multiple tries to dial a number.

9. No stylus required. Use the finger! Any finger will do. You can even use the middle finger if you want to send a message to Apple while you're using the phone.

10. It's an Apple. Okay! There, I said it. I am, after all, a Fanboy.